Shrapnel Sorrows
by CrystalOfEllinon
Summary: BeachHead ends up on the wrong end of a grenade. Doc and Lifeline are going to have a very loud, very grumpy problem for a little while. Sorry, Beach, but if you didn't play with high explosives this sort of thing wouldn't happen. M for language.
1. Chapter 1

Having beaten Snake Eyes to a pulp for the entertainment of watching a ninja and medics fight each other, I now again put fingers to keyboard to put Doc and Lifeline through the marginally less physically exhausting (For Lifeline, who usually ends up tracking their sneaky butts down) though certainly louder ordeal of BeachHead dealing with an injury. BeachHead/Covergirl, other canon pairings, and many Joes will make an appearance. And probably be yelled at. Sorry, guys, but medical confinement _doesn't_ make Sergeant Hardass happy. Will be another longer story.

* * *

The explosion was deafening. BeachHead flattened himself into the divot in the mud, and mostly avoided the shrapnel that the viper's grenade sent tearing through the air.

Mostly. Hot spikes of pain peppered their way along his back, and judging by the rush of heat and then the feel of air moving against his arms his BDU sleeves had been charred off, along with more than a little hair and probably some skin too.

He cautiously raised his head and glanced around. That grenade had come from…_there._ He spotted the viper grenadier, and without even thinking about it brought up his sidearm-his M16 had gotten run over by a HISS tank-and put a bullet cleanly through the viper's eye.

Things were pretty much wrapping up. The viper attack on the South American gold mines had been effectively squashed; the grenadier had been one of the last vipers remaining alive and uncaptured. He'd run after the rest of his squad had been subjected to the tender mercies of LowLight and Recondo, somehow managing to dodge the sniper's shots through either skill or sheer luck. BeachHead was betting on the latter.

He made his way back to the rest of the Joes, only about twenty yards away through the dense jungle. Hawk was scribbling down mission reports, using the side of a Mauler as a flat surface. Lifeline was tending to a few minor cuts, abrasions, and the various other nicks and dings that the Joes habitually picked up in the line of duty. No one seemed seriously hurt, which was good. Beach didn't like it when people got hurt; it meant that they took time off from PT, and he didn't like letting anyone slip on their physical conditioning.

Snake Eyes materialized next to him, seemingly out of nowhere. Beach glared at him. "Don't do that. Damn spook."

"Don't do what?" That was Storm Shadow, on his other side. Beach turned to glare at the second ninja.

"Don't sneak up on me." Beach growled. "I'm gonna shoot you two one of these days, I swear to God." It wasn't natural, anyways. Just _how_ a man who wore all white could vanish so completely in the middle of a jungle mystified him. Snake Eyes, sure. He understood that. Man wore black, could blend right into the shadows. But _white?_ Didn't make any goddamn sense. 'Course, ninja in general didn't make any goddamn sense.

Storm Shadow gave him that smug grin that made Beach's blood pressure shoot through the roof. "Try. Go ahead."

A hand landed on his shoulder suddenly. Beach turned to glare at Snake Eyes again. "You're askin' for a broken hand, spook."

But…Snake Eyes was steering him towards Lifeline, and suddenly Storm was darting ahead, clearing people out of the way by main force and looking worried. Beach blinked, and for the first time felt the deep, aching pain in the small of his back, and the warm stickiness of blood. He tried to turn and eye the damage, but the motion sent hot pain shooting through him and he hissed through his teeth.

Then Lifeline was darting up, and Beach found himself being manhandled facedown onto a stretcher by the medic and the two ninja. He cursed them out loudly and tried to resist, but that just earned him a tap on the pressure point in his shoulder from Snake and his arms twisted around and held helpless by Storm Shadow.

"Dammit!" He glared up at them. "What the hell's goin' on? Hey! OW! Lemme up!"

"You weren't kidding…" Lifeline was cutting the remains of his BDU shirt off. "Beach, stop struggling, you aren't going to throw them off and you know it. Besides, you've got a helluva laceration on your back; looks like you got torn open by a chunk of shrapnel. You're bleeding pretty heavily, and I need to get it stopped."

"I'm fine." Beach growled. He went to push himself up, and yelped as Storm planted a hand between his shoulders and shoved him back down. "OW! Dang it, ninja! Watch the cuts!"

"You are not fine." Beach could feel the medic applying a pressure bandage to the laceration on his lower back. "Snake, here…put pressure on the cut on his shoulder, that's bleeding pretty good too…good, keep it right there." BeachHead felt a gauze pad press down against another painful patch on his shoulder. "You're damn lucky that your spine's intact, Beach…whatever caught you nicked a vertebra, but not badly."

"Yeah, well, tape me up and lemme up." BeachHead growled. "And tell the spooks to back off…I don't like being manhandled by a pair o' crazy ninja…they've got lots of pointy bits."

Lifeline ignored him. "That stopped bleeding yet, Snake?" Beach felt the gauze lift for a bare instant. "Good…tape it up, you know how to do that much. Then help me get him on a Tomahawk. And you're _not_ walking, Beach, so don't try. You're back is torn all to hell, Doc's going to be picking shrapnel out of you for hours, and you're going to need a _lot_ of stitches. What did you _do_, anyways?"

"Ducked a grenade, but the cover wasn't quite enough." Beach tried to twist and see what was going on, but Lifeline absently reached over, planted a hand on the back of the Sergeant Major's head, and shoved him back down.

"Stay put, or I'll sedate you." The medic said in a threatening sort of tone. "You _know_ how much you love tranquilizer hangovers."

Beach stopped moving. "I'm bein' good."

"Right. The bleeding is under control…help me get him on the transport." Snake and Storm Shadow heaved the stretcher up. Storm winced.

"Geez…you're heavy."

Beach turned his head enough to glare at the ninja. "'s called 'muscle weight', scrawny."

"Whatever. I can mop the floor with you, and you damn well know it." Storm didn't seem fazed.

After the 'chopper was in the air and safely away from ninja, Beach moved to sit up.

"BEACHEAD!" Lifeline's snap stopped him cold. "LIE DOWN!"

He did, but glared up at the medic with murder in his eyes. Lifeline glared right back, eyes narrowed.

"I can damn well manage to sit up like a big boy." Beach grumped.

"Your back _just _stopped bleeding, and you're going to tear it back open if you don't stay put." Lifeline reached into his bag, and came out with a needle. "Do you know what this would do to you?"

Beach eyed the needle with apprehension. "Dunno."

"It would shut you up, make sure that you didn't hurt yourself any more, and make it much easier for me and Doc to get you on the operating table when we get back to the Pit." Lifeline glared down at him. "It would also make you even sicker than you're already going to be after Doc puts you out to dig metal out of your back and stitch up that grandmother of all shrapnel lacerations."

"You're awful mean for a pacifist." Beach grumbled, shifting uncomfortably. His back _hurt._

Lifeline smiled thinly. "I deal with the most reticent patients in the world on a regular basis, the worst of the lot being you and two ninja who view medical confinement as a game. I've learned how to deal with difficult patients. And I hate to break it to you, but of the three worst you're not the challenge."

BeachHead just grumbled to himself.

.


	2. Chapter 2

Trimethobenzamide is a anti-nausea medication given for post-surgery nausea and vomiting. Or at least that's what WebMD says.

* * *

When the Tomahawk landed back at the Pit, Doc was waiting for them. BeachHead moved to stand and walk out of the Chopper; Doc and Lifeline both glared at him. BeachHead scowled.

"I can damn well walk to medical." He frowned at the medics. "I don't need to be carried like a damn baby, for Chrissakes." He had a sudden thought. "You'd let _Snake_ walk himself out."

Doc gave him that long, silent glare that Beach had seen reduce more than one belligerent patient to meek, quiet tractability. "Only because I can't get a sedative shot into him unless he lets me, and he'd break my hands if I tried to strap him to a gurney. I _can _hit you with a needle if I have to though, so don't push your luck. If you give me one –_one-_ problem between here and the OR, I am going to stick you with enough sedatives to knock out a horse. And then I will put in for three months of full medical leave for you."

BeachHead settled carefully back down. Doc nodded. "That's what I thought."

Beach didn't have much time to contemplate the below-the-belt tactics of the Joe's medical staff, though. Doc and Lifeline had him on the operating table in an impressively short period of time, and Lifeline deftly stuck an IV line into his arm and started him on anesthesia. BeachHead's brain went fuzzy within a few seconds, and everything went black after a few more.

* * *

Several hours, thirty-six shrapnel fragments, and enough knot-tying to give him hand cramps later, Lifeline rolled his neck as he headed for the waiting area just off the ICU recovery room, where BeachHead was still out cold. His spine popped, and he sighed in relief.

Sure enough, Covergirl was in her usual chair, looking worried and trying to hide it. She looked up quickly when he walked in.

"He'll be fine." Lifeline smiled to himself at the obvious relief that flashed over the tank jockey's face and the way her shoulders relaxed. "He's still unconscious, but he should start coming around in an hour or so. I'm going to start him on anti-nausea medication soon; hopefully if I get it into him soon enough he won't be so miserable when he wakes up."

"How bad was he?" Covergirl still sounded anxious. "I heard that when he walked out of the trees, he was dripping blood all over and his back looked like hamburger."

"Pretty bad." Lifeline admitted. "He got torn up pretty good. Doc pulled almost two ounces of metal out of him, and he had some deep lacerations. But," Lifeline smiled. "He'll be up and grumping at Doc and I in no time. He's a tough man."

A sigh of relief. "Poor guy…he hates it when he's off his feet. Thanks for patching him up again, Lifeline. Even if he doesn't appreciate it properly, _I_ do."

Lifeline actually puffed up a little with pleasure at that comment. "Glad to know that _someone_ appreciates how hard Doc and I work to keep you lot alive and mostly intact. I swear, our good drill sergeant thinks that he can personally reenact 'Terminator', and then he acts surprised when he ends up in the infirmary." He sighed and shook his head. "You really need to get him to stop playing catch with high explosives." He looked around, suddenly realizing that something seemed off. "Where's Snake? Doesn't he usually hang around when BeachHead is under?"

"We're taking shifts." The voice was right behind him. Lifeline jumped, yelped in surprise, and pivoted to find Storm Shadow smirking at him in amusement. "And not even an ex-supermodel with an inexplicable soft spot for loud smelly men is going to be able to get BeachHead to stop playing 'chicken' with fragmentation grenades."

"Where did you come from?" Lifeline's heart rate slowly began to return to normal.

"Behind the door. You know, for some reason, when people open a door they never look behind it, which makes it _really_ easy to hide and sneak up behind you…I'd think you lot would learn already. You've served with Snake Eyes for _how_ long now?"

"He normally just stands there." Lifeline sighed.

"Does he?" Storm Shadow frowned. "I'll have to talk to him about that…he's getting lazy. You should _never _be seen on guard duty."

Covergirl snorted loudly. "Actually, Scarlett tells me that he rather enjoys it when vengeful greenies come barging in, wet themselves when they see him, and fall over each other getting the hell back out."

"Ah." Storm Shadow's face smoothed. "Well, if he's able to reduce a trespasser to tears with the intimidation factor alone, I suppose that's okay then."

Lifeline and Covergirl both sighed.

* * *

BeachHead clawed his way back to reality, the strange, vivid dreams/hallucinations that anesthesia gave him fading. He was lying on his stomach, and stared blearily at the wall, willing the last of the fuzzy thickness to clear from between his ears. It didn't.

"Hey there." Lifeline's face appeared in his field of view. "How are we feeling, then?"

BeachHead groaned. After a few tries, he got his jaw and voice box to work in concert. "Like I got hit by a damned nuke."

"Actually, that's good." Lifeline smiled. "I gave you a shot of Trimethobenzamide before you came around. It should take most of the edge off of your hangover. Oh, and I've got a present for you."

The medic held up a small jar halfway filled with twisted fragments of metal. He gave it a little shake, causing the contents to clink against the glass. "All dug out of your back over a period of four hours. Doc's convinced that you must have magnetic blood; there's like half of a grenade here. Did you even _try _to duck and cover, or is that just something you scream at other people to do?"

BeachHead bristled at that. "'Course I did. Cover wasn't quite enough is all.'"

He did feel better than he usually did when he was coming around after surgery. Talking rolled his stomach a little, but he was able to keep his breakfast down.

Lifeline looked pleased. "Excellent…You're already talking and grumpy. Usually you're still vomiting at this point…are you nauseated at all?"

"Yeah." BeachHead groaned. His skull was moving from cotton-filled to throbbing.

"I'll give you a little more, then…I gave you the minimum dose; you've never had this stuff before and I wasn't sure how you'd react to it. It seems to be working, though." Lifeline vanished, and a moment later BeachHead felt a sharp prick in, of all places, his backside.

"HEY!" Beach tried to bolt upwards. His head swam, and he sank back onto the bed, groaning.

"Sorry. It's an intra-muscular injection; it has to be done in the buttocks or upper thigh." Lifeline reappeared in BeachHead's field of vision, and the medic was actually smirking. "If you need another dose, I'll have Covergirl do it. Would that make you feel better about things?"

Beach glared. Lifeline chuckled. "Well, I'll check in every fifteen minutes. Here's the buzzer if you need me. Shall I let Covergirl in? She's been pacing a hole through the waiting room floor."

"No."

"Good. She'll be right in." Lifeline vanished, leaving Beach cursing the medic's name. At least whatever-the-hell medication he'd been stuck with was working; his stomach was still rolling, but he wasn't throwing up and he _could_ curse the medic out.

"Hey." Courtney was pulling up a chair. She plunked herself down next to his bed, and irritatingly enough seemed to have every intention of settling in for awhile. "How's the big bad ranger man doing?"

"Screw off, Barbiedoll. I don't feel like chatting right now."

She beamed. "Good to hear…Lifeline said that that unpronounceable medicine he gave you was helping. God, Beach, you really have to stop trying to defuse grenades with a bad attitude and a glare."

"I ducked." He frowned. "I'm gettin' sick of people hinting that I didn't…If I hadn't, you'd have had to ID me offa dental records and my dog tags."

She blanched. "Don't say that. It's not funny."

"It's the truth." He levered himself up, and glared when she frowned. "I can sit up without keeling over, dammit. And the other guy is feeding the worms now, so I gave better than I took."

He looked around, carefully. She smiled. "Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow aren't around."

"Damn spooks could be a foot away and you'd never know it." He listened carefully. "Go move a ceiling tile and check up above, will you?"

"They're not around."

He eyed her skeptically.

"Scarlett dragged Snake off as soon as Doc said you were coming around." She grinned. "I think they're going to be accounted for pretty much for the rest of the day…and Storm and that pilot are in the rec room arguing about something and enjoying it immensely…or they were twenty minutes ago when I went to get a sandwich. He'll be occupied the rest of the evening."

She laughed at his open scowl. "Lighten up, Wayne. You've broken your share of frat regs…I know that _very_ well."

He couldn't quite scowl at that. It was, after all, true. "Yeah, well, keep it to yourself, Cinderella."

She patted him on the knee. "Don't worry…I'm the jealous sort. I don't plan on sharing."

He actually grinned at that.


	3. Chapter 3

By the next morning, Beach was in a really foul mood. Doc had ended up threatening the Sergeant Major with a sedative shot and restraints when BeachHead had argued that he was more than capable of running PT as usual.

"You are not getting out of bed for a few days." Doc had glared over the top of his glasses. "I know you, and I don't feel like putting all of those stitches back in after you pull them all and cut yourself up some more dragging some idiot greenie out from under that razor wire you're so fond of. Also, you attract mud and I don't feel like cleaning grit out of your cuts for the next seven hours."

"But…" BeachHead started, scowling.

"Sergeant Slaughter is quite capable of whipping the lot of us to just this side of heatstroke. Your recruits are in good hands." Doc cut him off.

"Dammit, Doc…"

"I will tie you to that bed." Doc's voice had been irritatingly level. "And unless you've been taking lessons on the side from Storm and Snake, you're not getting out of medical restraints."

BeachHead snarled. "Maybe I _should._ Be nice to be able to work when I damn well know I'm fit for it."

"You are not fit to be up and working, and they won't teach you so don't bother asking." Doc said calmly. "I promised them long ago that they'd be on medical leave until they were both old and gray if they ever taught you whatever tricks they use to get out of restraints."

Doc ambled out, followed by loud and imaginative cursing. Beach didn't get up, however. He'd learned long ago that whatever threats Doc made to difficult patients would be followed up on to the letter.

He was still scowling when Covergirl poked her head in a couple hours later. She was satisfactorily coated in grime and sweat; Slaughter hadn't let them off easy, then. Good.

"Brought you breakfast." She brandished a tray. "Steak and eggs, so don't bitch about me not bringing you something that you like. Lifeline and Doc say that you haven't been having any problems with nausea, and you must be hungry."

"Bout time." He grumped. "I usually eat when the lot of you are still lazing in bed…I've been starving."

"Four AM isn't morning." Courtney grimaced. "I've gone to bed at four AM before. And I can take it back if you're going to complain about the punctuality of the service, you know."

"Don't you dare, Cinderella." He glared and she handed over his breakfast. "Should put you on the night shift with Low Light." Beach chewed contemplatively, food improving his mood slightly.

"Nah. You get really grumpy after about eight thirty." She smiled, and even muddy and sweaty she was stunning. "Be hell on our quiet time."

"What quiet time? We always end up arguing." He snorted. "For a lady, you've got a helluva impressive vocabulary, Krieger."

"Yeah, well, I enjoy pissing you off." She grinned again. "And I learned all of my swear words from the best. Big noisy ranger out of Alabama. You've met him; permanent stick up his ass, annoying as hell, abs of chiseled granite."

He grinned despite himself. "Cute, Cinderella. Real cute."

"Oh, I know." She gave him that sideways tilted glance that always, no matter where he was, how many people were trying to kill them, or how many pints of blood he was missing went straight to his libido. "I've made a lot of money being cute. You have any idea how much I was offered to pose for Victoria's Secret?"

His tentative good mood did an about face and he was scowling again. "Dammit, Courtney…you told me you never posed for any of that shit." God_dammit._ If she had, he was going to have to murder a _lot_ of people. A _lot._

She arched a challenging eyebrow. "Oh, don't be a prude. My ass looks fabulous in a thong…you've appreciated that fact more than once, ranger man."

"Fucking _hell, _woman…" He growled. His vision was going slightly red around the edges, and he wasn't sure if it was lust or anger. Or both. She was good at doing that to him. "I _ain't_ the sharin' type…ain't _no one _better see that ass but me, or I am gonna _hurt someone…"_

And she, with that damned smug little smile that was both rubbing him the wrong way and giving him very bad thoughts…She…was…laughing. Helplessly. Hysterically. She wiped a tear away finally as he sputtered in rage. "You are so _easy,_ Wayne."

"_Dammit, Kreiger! _Did you or did you not? How many people am I gonna be shooting?"

"Oh, Wayne…" She gasped for breath. "Relax. I never posed in a lingerie catalog. You don't have to succumb to testosterone poisoning and murder everyone who ever bought a copy of Victoria's Secret." She started laughing again. "I swear, you are downright cute when you get worked up."

He scowled. "I ain't cute, so don't go around spreadin' that kind of crap. I should give you pushups until you _die, _Barbiedoll…that just ain't nice."

She patted him on the shoulder. "Like I said. I enjoy pissing you off. How many pushups will that be, now?"

He sighed. "Drop and start goin'. I'll tell you when you're done."

His general bad temper didn't improve as the day wore on. Lifeline and Doc poked and prodded at him, forced pills down his throat, and generally ignored his efforts to be stubborn.

He made a mental note to re-do the obstacle course and run the two ninja ragged, however long it took. He remembered a time when medics feared him. There had been a time-he smiled as he remembered his stint in the Rangers in particular, before he'd been scouted for the Joe team-when he could bully doctors. Sure, that might never have worked with Doc, but the two ninja had hardened the G.I. Joe medics to the point where they only considered BeachHead mildly irritating, and then mostly because he complained a lot.

Mud pits usually didn't faze them…and neither did trip wires-but if he hid the trip wires in a mud pit? He nodded slowly. Worth a shot. And climbing obstacles; he'd never yet found one that could slow Snake or Storm, but maybe if he raised the wall another few feet and took the ropes off for their run? Well, they didn't usually use the climbing ropes…but then they usually did take climbing walls at a run, so raising the standard twelve foot wall another six or so feet might make things a bit more difficult.

An REC…both of the ninja seemed to view rope climbs as an excuse to demonstrate their tightrope-walking ability. Everyone else, much more sensibly, stuck to hooking knees over and pulling themselves along. A little grease on the ropes might slow them down, but most of the team could deal…but a cocksure ninja, hitting a greased rope at a dead run…with an exceptionally deep and sticky mud pit beneath to thoughtfully soften their fall; he wasn't inhumane, after all, he wouldn't actually break bones. He grinned. Yeah. He liked that one. That one was good.

Yeah. Ok. He could-reluctantly-wait a few days, but the whole team was going to regret the time it was going to give him to refigure the obstacle course. He grinned. That did not mean that he was going to be a good little boy for the medics, of course, but at least it would make him feel a little better.

BeachHead was a firm believer in the old adage "The more you sweat in peacetime, the less you bleed in war." Wayne Sneeden, however, had expanded this to include a little blood being acceptable during peacetime, as it generally prevented a great deal of much worse bleeding during war. He ran his people hard, sure, and they might not like it. But he was ok with that; he did it because he knew that it would keep them alive even when Hell more or less erupted around them.

BeachHead was also a firm believer in Murphy's law, and so he always expected missions to devolve into a clusterfuck of epic proportions. The very act of expecting the worst more often than not meant that he was able to help prevent it from happening…and in conjunction with his insistence that the team be in absolutely supreme shape and trained within an inch of their lives meant fewer men and women going home in bodybags. Which was a sight he absolutely hated beyond anything else.

He grinned a little. Of course, he did just like torturing them, too. There wasn't a drill instructor alive without a little bit of a sadistic streak to them. He was no exception.

Now, what could he do to the razor wire? He already used mud pits under the wire crawl on a regular basis…Hmmm…


	4. Chapter 4

It was two days before Doc let BeachHead get out of bed. The ranger spent the time grumpily catching up on his paperwork. Beach felt sorry for Hawk; the general saw more paperwork every day than the Sergeant Major did in a _week_, and Beach knew that his CO liked desk work just as much as he did.

Paperwork done, Beach turned his attention to sketching out the changes to the new, retooled, ninja-punishing (hopefully, anyway) obstacle course. Lifeline had been good enough to bring him a spare notebook with his paperwork. BeachHead was sure that the combat medic wouldn't have been so amiable to the request if he had known exactly what Beach wanted it for.

But he had a list of materials and modifications drawn up, and if he did say so himself this was really promising to be a beauty. He was sure-well, okay, _hopeful_- that he'd see some very tired, very dirty, and rather irritated ninja sometime soon. That was enough to improve his mood considerably; Doc seemed rather wary of the lack of loud complaining, but didn't question it.

But after that was done with, he still had more time than he really wanted to spend to lie on his back in this stupid bed and stare at the ceiling tiles. Courtney dropped by every few hours, which was nice…yes, he'd used the word nice, goddamnit, the girl was getting to him. He sighed. It at least broke the tedium. Even if half the time the tedium was being broken by arguing, at least the scenery was good.

Bored between Courtney's visits, he started fiddling with the restraint straps on his cot. He knew from experience that the tough leather and solidly made steel buckles wouldn't break even if he pulled on them really, really hard. Still, Doc didn't even bother with the things on Snake or Storm…somehow, the ninja could get out of the things without much trouble.

Curious, BeachHead buckled one wrist down and spent several minutes tugging and wiggling to absolutely no results.

"What the _hell_ are you doing?" Courtney's voice sounded amused.

BeachHead unbuckled his arm, giving up. Slippery danged spooks; he shook his head. "I was trying to figure out how the spooks slip restraints so quick." He frowned. "Doc won't let 'em teach me."

"Of course he won't. If you ever figured out how to get out of restraints, you'd make his life absolute hell." Covergirl settled herself on the edge of his bed without so much as a 'do you mind if I sit on you'. "I've seen Storm slip handcuffs when mission have gone south, you know…I think he's got double jointed fingers. Or maybe he just dissolves his bones."

"Aw, hell." Beach sighed. "Be a neat trick, but I actually _have_ bones. I doubt the spooks do."

"You're in a better mood." Covergirl frowned. "Why are you in a better mood, Wayne?"

"Doc's letting me out tomorrow morning in time for me to run you lot through PT." The Sergeant Major scowled. "He's going to superglue Lifeline to my ankles to keep me off the course, but sure as hell beats sitting in here all day."

Courtney gave him a long look, and suddenly snatched the notebook he'd _thought_ had been safely out of sight under his pillow. Danged girl was quick when she wanted to be; she was across the room and rifling through the pages with interest in a heartbeat, ignoring his angry growl.

She examined his sketches with interest that rapidly transmuted to apprehension. She groaned. "Wayne, you are _evil."_

He swung his legs out of bed, stalked over, and pried the notebook out of her hands. "Jus' for that, you get to run it _twice._"

"Figured." She sighed. "Greased ropes? Is that really necessary?"

He smirked. "That's there for the spooks...but the rest of you'll deal with it jus' fine. Or you'd _better._"

She tilted her head. "You really, truly are evil. You _know_ that Snake and Storm are going to hit those at an upright run."

He grinned a bit more widely. "That's why there's a mud pit a good foot deeper than any of the others beneath that one…soft landing."

She eyed him. "You do realize what they'll do to you once Doc clears you for hand-to-hand, right?"

"I can handle them." He glared. "I could roll two of Storm together and still pick him up by the neck, and you know it."

"Only if you really didn't want your hand any longer." She snorted. "You can handle them just fine. Right. That's why we found you hogtied and shoved behind the dryers in the laundry room after you got into it with Storm Shadow over his stint in Cobra and decided to take a revenge swing at him. Because you can _totally_ take on one of them, let alone both." She tapped a finger against her chin. "You know, you've never called him a 'backstabbing two-faced traitor again…at least to his face."

He glared. "Dammit, woman, I told you; by the time I swung he was gone, and I never saw the damned man after that. I can't strangle what I can't see. I'm on to his tricks now…I could take him this time."

"He's a motherfucking ninja, Wayne. Not being seen is something he's _good_ at." She sighed. "And you were standing toe to toe with Snake and looking right at him when you started went after him out over refusing to kill Storm on sight when he turned himself in to Hawk. Didn't you accuse him of endangering the team by trusting a murderer right before you took a swing at him?" She pursed her lips. "Didn't you end up tied to one of the 50 cal installments on my Wolverine that time?"

"Fuck off, Cinderella."

"Whatever. I'm not even going to warn them. Watching them use your thick skull for kicking practice will be funny."

She wandered out then, leaving BeachHead to fume and contemplate the actually highly likely possibility of payback from irritated ninja. He shrugged. It was worth the risk to wipe that smug damned grin off of Stormy's face for once.

Thirty hours later, he was enjoying the fact that Doc had finally let him back to light duty. Albeit only after putting out an all-points bulletin offering a reward for anyone who spotted the ranger "playing in mud puddles or crawling around on or under sharp things"; Beach sighed. Doc really, really knew his patients.

Then he snapped at the greenie who'd been unfortunate enough to snark about "getting drafted for a military unit, not a bloody circus" within Flint's earshot. Not able to work on the PT course himself, Beach had conscripted several greenies who'd landed on KP duty somehow or another. He'd snagged the smartass for the worst of the work.

"You're doin' a lot more whining than digging. That shovel getting' heavy, meatbrain?" Beach snarled down at the young man. "I should bring the girls over…they work faster and whine less. You can go for a nice few laps around the fenceline instead if you've got enough breath to curse with. That sound fun?"

"No Sergeant Major!" The greenie started shoveling dirt out of the soon-to-be mudpit under the REC much more quickly.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. Hurry up. Once you're done there, you get to crawl through the tunnel and run the tripwires. I've already had your buddy Stelton shovel the mud in. It's nice and slimy and cold. Won't that be fun?"

A groan. BeachHead scowled. "I ASKED YOU A QUESTION!"

"Yes, Sergeant Major! Looking forwards to it, Sergeant Major!"

BeachHead smiled. "Good to hear some enthusiasm...tell you what; since you're enjoying this so much, you can drag the lumber over to the climbing wall and get a start on that too after the tripwires." His grin grew wider. "Wouldn't _dream_ of cutting your fun short, maggot."

Another groan. BeachHead sighed happily; he'd really missed the sounds of suffering from this moron in particular. The kid had a real attitude problem. Even after Snakes had given the _dojo_ a thorough scrubdown with the greenie's face, the kid had an attitude problem. Beach knew how to take care of snarky mouths, and he enjoyed doing it more than a little. He was, after all, a drill instructor, and you had to enjoy a certain amount of human pain to make a good drill instructor…even though you knew it was for your recruit's own good, you had to be mean, and loud, and tougher than tempered steel.

BeachHead was the best drill instructor the Rangers had ever turned out. His hands itched a little. Normally, he'd be down in the mud himself and working himself just as hard as he was working the recruits; he sighed. Damn medics…maybe Doc wouldn't notice if he just hammered in a few nails on the climbing wall? Huh…


	5. Chapter 5

Doc did notice, and he wasn't happy. Beach did his best to tune out the medic's growling and irritated lecture as the medic replaced the stitches Beach had torn out on his shoulder.

"What part of 'stay off of the PT course didn't you understand, exactly?" Doc tied a final knot, pushed his tools aside, and glared down at the ranger. "I didn't mean 'grab some heavy things and climb up a half-finished wall'. I meant '_Stay off the damned PT course_'!"

"Geez. I'm fine. Just popped a few stitches out…coulda just taped it up and it'd be fine."

"Beach, I pulled a chunk of metal the size of my thumbnail out of that cut two days ago." Doc pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm done. I'm done fighting with you. You never listen."

BeachHead perked up. "That means I can go finish stringing the tripwires in the trees?"

Doc gave him a long look. "That means that I'm done bargaining. I could bring in Hawk, but he's busy and I hate to bother him. So I'll make this simple; you do anything, _anything, _that goes against my orders and I'll both have Storm drag you in-and yes, he _eagerly_ volunteered for the job-and help me strap you down and then I _will _put in for three months of full medical leave for you."

BeachHead scowled. "You…"

"I have the paperwork on my desk already." Doc glared right back at him. "And to top it off, I'll tell let it slip what you said about your last present to Covergirl. You talked a lot about it when you were still under sedation."

BeachHead went from angry to downright pissed in a quarter of a second. "Doc, that's just low…I didn't say nothing like that."

"She wears thongs, hmmm?" Doc's grin was pure triumph. "And you buy them for her? I didn't know you had a subscription to Frederick's of Hollywood, Beach."

BeachHead heat almost stopped. He felt his face going hot, and knew he was going past red and purple and straight to black. His jaw worked a few times. "Yew ever say _anythin'…_I don' give a _fuck…_I'll kill ya so hard _Snake'll_ wince when he sees what I leave behind…"

"So, what are you going to spend the next few days doing?" Doc's voice was pure steel.

"Nothin. Abso-fuckin-lutely nothin." Beach growled. "You're dead come PT, Doc."

"Uh huh." Doc was smiling now, looking inordinately pleased with himself. "Good to hear. Have a nice day now."

Beach stomped out in a really foul mood; a greenie passing in the hall yelped and dove out of his way. Beach eyed the young man. "You! You on important business?"

"No, sir!"

"I AIN'T A SIR!" Beach roared. "Dammit, you greenies never get that through your thick skulls…PT course! _Now_!"

"Yes, Sergeant Major! Sorry, Sergeant Major!" The young man tore off as if Satan himself was nipping at his heels. Beach stomped along behind him.

BeachHead felt only marginally better after yelling and growling the greenies through the rest of course construction; it was getting dark by the time the last of the mud was shoveled in and the final tripwires were run.

He was feeling much better the next morning; the Joe team, totally unaware of exactly what they were in for, ran through warm-ups and jogging easily enough. Beach snapped, and they jumped satisfactorily enough into ranks.

"Right. I'll be runnin' you in pairs today." He looked up and down the line. Spooks first…he'd send Courtney and Doc last; they'd both get to go twice today. Possibly four or five times for the medic; Doc was still looking rather smug.

He had to consciously keep himself from rubbing his hands in glee; Storm Shadow and Snakes were standing next to each other per usual, and Storm had that slightly bored look on his face that BeachHead took very personally.

"Storm, Snake, since I obviously can't faze you, let's see you show this lot how to run a course. Get moving!"

The two men took off; Beach trotted after them, keeping a close eye on their progress. The first few obstacles…a tire run, a wire crawl…were fairly standard. BeachHead had done that on purpose.

The REC, looking innocent, was up next. Both ninja shot up the netting without visibly slowing, and sure enough, both men bounded onto the tightly-stretched ropes without a second's thought.

The yelp of surprise from Storm, the moment of frantic scrabbling, and then the two loud 'splats' sent BeachHead's mood through the stratosphere. He sighed happily before yelling.

"What, your balance broken? Get back up there; do I have to show you how to do it?"

Covered head to toe in mud, Storm looked absolutely murderous; even the usually-unflappable Snake seemed rather irritated. On the second try, the two ninja approached the ropes with a good deal more caution; they didn't take a second trip into the mud, but Beach hadn't really expected them to.

The tunnel crawl had been halfway filled with muck and tripwires had been submerged just under the surface. Storm emerged first, looking even more disgusted. Snake was only a few seconds behind.

The minefield, also crisscrossed by nearly-invisible tripwires, unfortunately didn't seem to faze the pair. Beach scowled; he'd been trying to disprove the adage "a ninja does not step on a landmine" for years now, and he'd really hoped that this time he might get one of them.

The course cut through the edge of the tree line, and the trees had been liberally booby trapped with tripwires, mud pits, and more landmines. Storm and Snake seemed to be taking their time now, however; they weren't moving at their usual flat-out sprint, and when they hit the trees both ninja simply shinnied up into the canopy and vanished, dropping back out the other side and completely bypassing the traps on the ground. BeachHead scowled again; he should have known they'd do that.

The climbing wall…eighteen feet of it…didn't slow them a bit. BeachHead had _thought_ he'd gone over the thing and fixed any finger and toeholds, but Snake and Storm both shot up the thing like a pair of overgrown squirrels.

Another mud pit crossed by a commando line; also greased. But Storm and Snake didn't fall for it; BeachHead cursed softly as the ninja slid carefully along, not falling once.

The final obstacle, a razor wire crawl, had carefully placed gaps in the wire…the better for Low Light and his sniper trainees to aim through. Plus mud. Thick, sticky, dragging mud, with submerged sticks and wires to trap and hang up hands and feet. The ninja vanished under the wire and the snipers started popping away with their paintball guns.

Snake Eyes emerged first; the ninja's usual black bodysuit was invisible under the grime that coated him, and…Beach smiled in triumph…several bright pink splotches of paint on the back of his right shoulder. BeachHead wondered if the ninja could even see; his visor was coated in muck.

Storm was only a second behind his friend; the more lightly built ninja's hair was spiked with grime and and he had a bright blue spatter of paint across his shins.

The two men crossed the chalked finish line and slowed to a halt. Beach clicked his stopwatch. He glanced down, back up at the ninja.

"Forty seconds off of your best time." He scowled. "Still, better than I thought you'd do."

Storm Shadow picked a twig out of his hair; the ninja was looking distinctly disgruntled. "I aim to please, Drill Sergeant. The greased ropes were a nice touch…you think of that all by yourself?"

"Snark at me, will you…down and pump 'em out until _I_ get tired, spook."

Storm went down on his knuckles as BeachHead sent Jaye and Scarlett out. Beach still heard the ninja say something in Japanese; he turned on him just in time to see Snake Eyes signing back.

*He's all yours.*

"Snakes, you just earned yourself a place by your buddy in the grass." Beach watched the commando drop obediently. "You're both stayin' down there until you're both too tired to _think_ about doing anything evil and ninja-y to me for a _long_ time." BeachHead grinned. "You enjoyed the ropes, then? I put those up with you in mind, you know."

Wisely, neither man answered.


	6. Chapter 6

It was another very long week before Doc took Beach's stitches out and proclaimed him fit for regular duty again. The greenshirts, BeachHead was sure, would thank the medic at some length. A BeachHead on light duty was a grumpy BeachHead, and a grumpy BeachHead cheered himself up by making sure that his recruits were just as miserable as he was.

Stitches out, he found Courtney waiting for him in the hall. She grinned. "The big bad ranger man back in business?"

"Good as new...got a nice new scar now, though."

"Good. C'mon." She headed off at a good clip. Beach followed mostly out of curiosity.

After five minutes, he was moving from 'curious' to 'bored and slightly irritated'. "What the _hell_ are we lookin' for, Courtney..."

She abruptly stopped; he almost ran her over. She opened a door, revealing a tiny unused supply room. She shoved him in and shut the door behind them, locking it.

"Wha..."

Her shirt hit him in the face. He ducked, and her pants just missed. Her boots hit the floor with a _clump,_ and BeachHead felt his jaw drop. That...that was red lace, and not very damned much of it. And a garter belt. And _stockings._ The kind with the little line up the back, topped off with little red bows...

Holy_fuck_. If _this_ is what he got afterwards, he'd get blown up more often.

"Like it?" She asked, smirking. "It's new...just got it today. Does it look okay?" She twisted to eye the back of the stockings critically, and he swallowed hard. "The bows aren't too much, are they?"

"Jesus motherfucking _Christ, _Courtney." His brain was rapidly shutting down as his blood supply was shunted lower.

"I'm guessing you _do _like it; your tongue is hanging out." She looked very smug about this fact. "Well, if you like it so much, get your ass over here and take it off, Wayne."

Like there was a chance in hell he _wouldn't._ He grinned and obeyed her with _extreme_ enthusiasm.

By hand-to-hand time, BeachHead was in a _great_ mood. When he passed a greenshirt in the hall on his way up to the _dojo_ from his office, the poor kid...actually, the same kid he'd snapped at outside the medical center a few days ago...looked shocked. BeachHead grinned; he doubted that the other recruits would believe the man had seen the Sergeant Major _whistling_ to himself. Rather tunelessly and not very loudly, but still.

He arrived early, as usual. Also as usual, Snake and Storm were already in the _dojo. _The two ninja were walking through knife fighting techniques; Beach made a mental note to have Snake show him the interesting one that feinted in for the belly, then cut _up _and tore open the wrists.

The two men glanced over as he walked in, and even under that damned mask Beach could see Storm Shadow's grin.

Fuck.

"Doc cleared you for full duty?" The ninja didn't _sound_ too vindictive today, but Beach knew better.

"Yeah."

"Excellent." Storm waved him over to the wall. "Snake and I are just finishing up...the rest of the advanced class should be here soon."

Twenty minutes later, after warm-ups and a rundown on what they'd be working on, Storm and Scarlett neatly split the group down the middle and took opposite sides of the training mats. BeachHead, not particularly to his surprise, ended up in Storm Shadow's group.

Storm's grin hadn't faded one bit. "Right. Like my sword brother said, you all need work on chokeholds and throws. You all could choke someone out if you needed to, but the standard 'grab and squeeze' is really a very impractical way of doing it. It takes almost thirty seconds to induce unconsciousness by crushing the trachea, and a full two minutes to kill. I'm going to show you something called a 'sleeper'. Properly applied, unconsciousness will result in three to four seconds and death in ten to fifteen. I'll need someone to demonstrate on..."

Beach felt the Storm Shadow's eyes fix squarely on him. The wiry ninja _grinned. _"BeachHead...come on over."

Thirty seconds later, and BeachHead was trying very hard to breathe as Storm's astonishingly strong fingers-the man was at least twenty, thirty pounds lighter than Beach, he shouldn't be able to manhandle him so easily-dug into his throat, and it didn't help that the ninja had his spine bent at a really awkward angle.  
"So, what you want is to pinch off the jugular and carotid...I'm not quite doing it here because I don't actually want to kill him, but you can see where you need your fingers. Properly applied, this also hurts quite badly. How are we feeling, Beach?"

"_Gnnng."_

"Good. I don't need to tell you all to be careful with this; I shall be very unhappy if I have to call Lifeline to revive someone because their partner was being stupid."

By the time Snake and Storm were satisfied on the sleeper holds, BeachHead's throat was aching, even though he knew very well that the ninja hadn't actually cranked the chokehold on full. And _then_ they showed how to do the damn sleeper off a forearm choke. And after that, Beach got 'volunteered' as the demo dummy again, this time for throws. Which Storm Shadow again seemed to enjoy more than a little.

BeachHead was _sure_ that the hang time Storm got off the combo shoulder-throw-power-sweep wasn't expressly necessary. Even with the mats, the landing smarted a bit.

He was _glad_ when hand-to-hand finally let out. He cheered himself up by replaying his recent rendezvous with a lingerie-clad supermodel and the look on Stormy's face when the ninja had hit the mud pit a few days back.

He headed for the armory. A new shipment of nine mill sidearms had come in, and he wanted to go over the lot of them and check for defects. Damn factory workers missed things sometimes...lazy bastards.

Finis


End file.
